'Play It Hot' Played It Cold

To call Play It Hot a very amateur and poorly produced play sounds so heartless, but in all honesty, that is what this crude rehash of desi Rafoo Chakkar and videshi Some Like It Hot turned out to be.

The play, staged at the Akshara Theatre in Delhi has been touted as a musical comedy inspired by Marilyn Munroe’s irresistible ‘Some Like It Hot’, but unfortunately, this Hollywood-Bollywood inspired effort fell flat and came across more as a comedy of errors instead.

The story - for those who have neither seen Some Like It Hot, nor our own Rishi Kapoor starrer Rafoo Chakkar – revolves around an out-of-work boy band that cross dresses as girls to win a Valentine’s Day gig in a Goa hotel. What follows is a series of very obvious goof ups laced with slapstick humour, for the band of boys have now become an all girls band very enthusiastically named ‘The Rapchik Rockers’. Once in Goa, these garishly dressed up ‘girls’ are joined by a lead singer, a hyper band manager and hordes of leching admirers.

This trailer sourced from youtube will give you an idea about how Play It Hot looks and feels like on stage.

It’s not the now-funny-now-drab acting that puts the mood off, but the poor production value and the dismal aesthetic sense that are the biggest turn offs. Changes in scenes took as long as 5 to 10 minutes and at times the production people did not even bother putting the lights off, so right in front of the audience in this really small auditorium there’s furniture being dragged, lights being adjusted and the celebratory festoons being altered as per the demand of the next scene.

To give ‘Play It Hot’ some credit, some of the actors are good especially Nisa Schette who plays the lead singer with aspirations to marry a handsome millionaire. Another actor that really makes the audience laugh is Vikalp Mudgal, playing a Ranjeet inspired butt-pinching, skirt-chasing Rai Sahab.

And last but not least, worth a mention here is the delicious tomato soup and generous servings of sandwiches that came complimentary with the ticket. :)

P.S. This is not a sponsored review, the views expressed are personal.